Litany for Bird and Devil
by Meer-Katnip
Summary: Let's say the Bird is played by two women. We'll call them Holly.


**_(Artemis Fowl was my first fandom, and I'm very happy to say I'm back- although just for a short period of time; long enough to post this, at least._**

 ** _Inspired by 'You Are Jeff' by Richard Siken, and I'm so very sorry for this whole thing. Warnings for general edginess, Stockholm Syndrome and confusing narrative. Shippy in a way I haven't tried before. )_**

* * *

1.

A boy sits on the edge of windowsill with a book in his hands and lets the words flow over his mind. He reads and learns and grows ever so slightly. Beyond the glass, a shimmer crests the air and comes to rest on the balcony outside the windowsill. The shimmer looks at the boy. The boy turns a page with a sound like leaves rustling in the park.

Maybe the shimmer will meet the boy once more. Or maybe the stories are such that their paths will never cross- two tales as old as time that briefly brush strands in the middle of a maelstrom of stories and legends.

* * *

2.

 _I hate you,_ she says, but that's not quite right so time _reverses_

 _I love you,_ she tells him, a tear trickling down her fine, coffee-colored skin and her eyes tell the true story. But that's not right either so _time goes back again_

 _I wish I could hate you,_ she admits quietly, which is close enough. He stole her away, took her to a place where the stars don't shine (it's only concrete up above) and where plants don't grow (concrete below, too) and where she can't run for miles in the long green grass (concrete again).

Concrete everywhere she looks, concrete in the air she breathes, her world is concrete so she goes insane and howls for all she's lost like an animal while he sits in his closeted room and watches.

* * *

3.

A long wooden rod with hair-of-horse strung along it darts through the air- we'd call that a _bow._ A curved, elegant contraption with metal strings woven through its length is held aloft for the hair-of-horse rod to stroke- we'd call it a _violin_ , but those are words, just noise in the air. Noise like the melodies and harmonies that dance into the air like a breeze. The hands that hold the two named-instruments are expert, and know just how to coax the notes from it.

Those hands can play a being just as well as any instrument. They can plot, they can deceive, they can make things happen.

Those hands aren't just the hands of a Boy- they are the hands of a God.

* * *

4.

This is a story- a complex one, one spanning over many centuries and places, but mostly taking place in the here and now. If it's a story, there are so many mediums it could take place in- it might be a book or a stage play or a song or a dance.

If it's a dance, it's beyond our limited human understanding.

There are two main characters, though, that everything else spins around- two characters that change as time goes on but they stay the same (almost) and we'll call one a Bird and the other a Devil because that's how the story goes.

* * *

5.

Let's say the Bird is played by two women. We'll call them Holly.

The Holly on the left is the very essence of purity and could possibly be a dove- or a Phoenix; she blazes into the night like starfire. Her eyes sparkle with the spirit of birdsong and cinnamon and fresh grass. She's carefree and uncaged.

The Other Holly looks bedraggled and worn down, so we'll call her a raven- her song is dulled by time and concrete wrapped around her being. Both are caged. Neither are happy. Both want to fly again.

Holly and Holly sing a duet of loss and sorrow that mingles perfectly with the weeping of the violin.

Holly and Holly are maybe twins, except they are the same but different.

* * *

6.

You are playing chess with the Devil, and you're fully aware that he's winning but you can't quit now because what you're playing for is so very important. He's thousands of steps ahead of you and you know what the outcome of this game is going to be, but you're compelled to keep on playing because you can hear the shrieks and calls of a Bird from the other side of the large glass cage; the cries of a Raven-Phoenix-Dove that yearns to be free.

The Devil smiles and you despair because he loves the Bird in a twisted way and will never let her free without a fight.

* * *

7.

Consider, if you will, that the Devil is played by a multitude. Consider that all of the Devil are the same- skin as pale as death, hair as black as night, a smile that borders the line between 'vampire' and 'corpse'.

Consider the fact that the Devil is real and that he's a teenage boy in an immaculate suit, sitting in his office, surrounded by a web of lies and plans. And in the distance, a duet of lament on violin plays, a testament to all that he has done and will do.

* * *

8.

You are playing chess with two Devils, except one's on your side.

This game's a complex one, spanning several boards and several games. It twists in and out of the story that the shimmer and the boy once spun, and many more stories besides. The Devil on your shoulder helps the best he can, but he's losing touch with himself into a sea of fours.

Why four?

 _Why not?_ says the Devil in front of you, and checkmates you, but you cheat. And the Devil nods with an approving look in his eye because the Devil always knows, especially this one.

* * *

9.

The Bird and the Devil fight at the bend in the river beneath the ancient oak tree, and the Devil doesn't know how to fight. His fingers are only right for violin playing, and as he beats at the Bird and feathers drift the ground around them, she attacks, scratching at his face. They fall to the ground together, still fighting, and somehow they seem more human in the grips of battle.

You watch from the top of the tree as the Devil screams and it's a sound that you'd never want to hear again because he is a God-Devil, and gods do not feel pain, except when their hearts have been torn out.

* * *

10.

The Devil is only played by one boy, no matter how much he wants you to think otherwise, and that boy is the one that sat on a windowsill so very long ago. The Bird is still played by two women, and one of them is you.

You wish you were someone else. If you were someone else, you'd wish you were here.

* * *

11.

You and the Devil fight at the bend in the river beneath the ancient oak tree, and the Devil doesn't know how to fight, but for some reason neither of you are trying. You claw at his elegant fingers and you rip the smile off his face like a mask, and underneath is a Boy who wants his mother and father back.

You remember:

the boy at the window who was reading a book that is possibly Your Story but maybe not

days when everything was not defined yet and your long long life was sprawled in front of you

You feel tears trickling down your face and wonder why you're crying.

* * *

12.

The Devil and the Bird and You are in a concrete room and you are all staring at each other like caged animals. No one is quite sure how to begin, and so the silence fills the room like some deadly poison gas. You love the Devil, you think, in a way that you could never begin to put into words, but you hate him as well, and the Bird thinks the same. No one knows what the Devil thinks, so neither of you try.

* * *

13.

You are playing chess against a boy who taught himself from a book, and you're winning, but only because he's letting you. It's an odd game; almost as if both of you are trying very hard to let the other win. You wonder what the point is, then hear the Bird call again.

 _Checkmate,_ you say, and the Boy smiles in a way that makes you expect him to reveal that it had all been his dastardly plan all along.

 _You're free to go,_ he tells you, and you ask about the Bird and he tells you to forget about it, and sends you away with piles of gold. And you do forget, and you try to forget about the concrete room and the Devil and most of all the Bird played by two people, both of which are you. You try ever so hard, knowing full well that it won't be enough.

* * *

14.

The air is fresh, the grass is cool on your feet, but the Bird isn't there, so you don't feel free. A part of you has been left behind in that concrete room, and you think you can hear a violin somewhere, singing out the words that you can't say yourself.

The Devil is polite and quiet and reserved but always has a plan, and you can't help but admire him for that. And that admiration might be something else, but you really don't want to accept that because of the repercussions that will follow.

* * *

15.

Consider, if you will, that the Devil isn't played by a multitude but by one very small, very confused boy who wants you to think that he's bigger than he really is. Consider that the boy looks the same as the Devil- skin as pale as death, hair as black as night, a smile that borders the line between 'vampire' and 'corpse'.

Consider the fact that the Devil isn't real and that he's just a teenage boy in an immaculate suit. Sitting in his office. Surrounded by a web of lies gone wrong and plans gone awry. And in the distance, the Bird calls brokenly, and his mother wonders what went wrong.

* * *

16.

You're sitting underneath the ancient oak tree, just at the river bend, and there's a Boy in a Devil's suit waiting there for you. He looks ghostly and barely there in the moonlight and he has a cage in his hand- golden and gilded- with a Bird in it. You want the Bird back; you had no idea how much you missed it until it was gone; so you beg him. And he smiles, and you despair because you know what that smile means.

* * *

17.

If this is a story, it's surely a song, because the duet between Devil and Bird is the glue that holds the whole thing together. It's a fragile song, one constructed of emotions that are destined to break apart like spun sugar at any given time, but it's also beautiful and horrible, gold and red and black twisted around the strands.

If it were an actual song, it would be a masterpiece.

* * *

18.

 _I love you,_ you say.

 _I hate you,_ you also say.

 _I can't decide,_ you yell over the singing of the Bird and the cacophony of noise that is the violin. It's a feeling that you don't have a name for, a feeling that's perhaps never existed anywhere above or below ground. It's a feeling that's unique to this story of a Bird and a Devil, and it's somewhere between love and hate and passion, something deeper than that. You can feel the feeling wrapping itself around your heart and you sob because it's something that you cannot see nor hear nor touch or even have a name for.

But it doesn't matter.

 _I know,_ he tells you.


End file.
